


all the other rooms are a party tonight (and you never got an invitation)

by irnan



Series: old haunts [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman and Robin (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Family, Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-02
Updated: 2013-11-02
Packaged: 2017-12-31 06:09:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1028178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irnan/pseuds/irnan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The major difference between Gotham before Bruce left to set up Batman, Inc and Gotham after he comes back is that his children are grown-ups. Well, except for Damian. </p><p>Still, four out of five's an overwhelming majority.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all the other rooms are a party tonight (and you never got an invitation)

**Author's Note:**

> Semi-crack!fic that totally, completely, utterly disregards the actual events of stuff like Batman, Inc and Battle for the Cowl and may contain ridiculous fanwank of things not meant to be fanwanked into making sense (i.e. Bruce Wayne's terrible decision-making in the face of his impending mortality, particularly as regards the inheritances of his middle children Timothy and Cassandra, and various related matters); may also contain a significant helping of The Author's Feelings About Jason Todd's Upbringing (and Why Everything Is Always Bruce's Fault). Why the hell I felt the need to write a fic entirely from the POV of a character whom I congenially dislike about the relationships that made me dislike him just surpasseth understanding.
> 
> Title from The Gaslight Anthem.

Bruce’s first week back in Gotham is a _disaster_ , but he’s not about to admit that to anyone, except maybe Clark, and then only on the condition that he first gets very, very drunk, which he never has in his life, so, functionally, he’s not admitting it to anyone.

Yet.

He’s been back to Gotham before. Every time he wraps up a Batman, Inc operation he comes back: a week here, a fortnight there. He spends time with Dick and Damian and… and gets slapped by Steph and starts arguments with Tim over his father’s murderer.

And let’s not even talk about his daughter’s extraordinary skills at ignoring people.

*********

It starts with him finding himself quartered in Dick’s guest room, which is its own special humiliation, though Bruce can’t quite put his finger on why that should be so (which frustrates him even more; he is, after all, the World’s Greatest Detective). Oh! said Dick, when Bruce said he was going over to the Manor for the night. We, uh, we closed that up again.

But, said Bruce, has Cass been staying with you?

She moved in with Drake about two days after she got here, Damian had informed him, and seemed to be biting his tongue on a number of unflattering observations such as _thank God_.

Bruce is – well. It’s not that he expects his children to hate each other. It’s just that it’s been a rough few years, especially for Tim, and therefore it’s not out of the ordinary, or telling, or anything like that, to feel relieved that Tim and Cass like (love) each other enough to share an apartment.

But the news reinforces the uncomfortable realisation that his children have grown up: they’ve moved out and moved on, and Bruce, like any leftover, unnecessary parent, is being relegated to guest rooms and spare beds, because he’s…

Well, he’s a _guest_.

That stings.

*********

Within four days of setting up shop in Dick’s apartment Bruce has spent an approximate total of seventy hours dancing around the question of whether or not he should move back into the Manor, and if he did, would Alfred come with him? and has come to the gloomy conclusion that no, Alfred would probably not.

Not that Bruce has actually put the question to him in so many words.

He’s spent almost as much time in the Bunker, watching Dick and Damian manoeuvre around one another with the same ease that Bruce and Dick used to, and finding himself – grudgingly – forced to admit that the place is excellently outfitted and competently designed.

It’s not that he begrudges them their own space. It’s just that he’d prefer their space to be… where he wants it to be.

“I’m surprised you didn’t find a way to bring the dinosaur,” he says to Dick.

“The dinosaur?” says Dick, and then laughs. “Yeah, well, I kind of needed to get Damian to believe I was an adult worth taking seriously.”

“For all the success you’ve had you might as well have brought the dinosaur,” Damian says snidely.

“That was uncalled for,” says Bruce, needled.

Dick stares at him.

“What was?” Damian asks, sounding puzzled.

“B,” says Dick. “Um, thank you! For… defending my honour. But. We’re good.”

Bruce crosses his arms over his chest and frowns. He’s always – his children have always teased him, and he’s never hesitated to tease back, but that tone of Damian’s went right past teasing and into mortal insult.

“As in, stop making the Bat-face,” says Dick sternly.

Bruce goes back to his case files in silence.

(You realise you’ve been known to take that tone with me, don’t you, said Clark, and Bruce said irritably, that’s not the point! and changed the subject.)

*********

No matter how often Batman tries to convince himself that the Batsignal is nothing more than a necessary tool for a necessary job, twenty years later he still can’t quite squash the twist of excitement in his chest whenever he sees it thrown across the Gotham skyline: a warning, a summons, a promise, a hope. This is his mark, stamped across his city night after night – not in ownership, but in protection.

He’s not far from Central – less than twenty minutes, and he thinks it’ll be good to see Jim again, to return to that partnership. But as he hits the opposite roof the anticipation – the closest he’ll allow himself to come to cheerful – turns uncomfortably… sour.

Batman’s already there.

Oh.

Well then.

Well, that was a wasted trip.

Disgruntled – unsettled – he heads back out.

*********

The docks are quiet, but that’s because Red Robin and Batgirl are zip-tying thugs and having an argument about science fiction novels. Batman is too far away to hear the whole thing, and too irritated to switch on comms, but the words _Heinlein_ and _talentless hack_ float back to him; so too does his son’s indignant exclamation that _alt-history doesn’t count!_

Batman isn’t sure he knows what alt-history even is.

He’s certain he didn’t know that Red Robin and Batgirl were once again on such good terms, almost as good as – as before, or so it seems to him. Then again, it’s been over a year since he returned: what was he expecting? Time to stand still?

It always has before, in Gotham.

*********

Robin is sitting on Catwoman’s rooftop access door _playing with a kitten_.

This is getting ridiculous. Batman doesn’t believe in premonitions, but he could pick whatever trouble hotspot in the city to patrol this evening and he’s positive that whichever one he chooses, Black Bat will be there when he arrives. Just _positive_.

*********

Batman, of course, is very rarely wrong.

Black Bat is perched on a fire escape chatting placidly with a cop whom Batman recognises as Dick Grayson’s former partner Amy Rohrbach while three men are led away in handcuffs and a boy in a yellow shirt gives an excited witness statement to another officer.

Well.

*********

He’s clearly superfluous.

*********

“ _Batman_ most certainly is, sir,” says Alfred pointedly.

*********

Batman is the first to admit that his opinion of Bruce Wayne is occasionally… negligent, but he would also like to be quite, quite clear about this: both of them are more than capable of taking a hint, thank you, Alfred.

(Or several hints, in this case.)

*********

He hasn’t been back to Tim’s new place in Crime Alley since they had that fight about Boomerang and Tim’s… new outlook on crimefighting, so Bruce isn’t really expecting a hugely warm welcome, regardless of the fact that they haven’t discussed it since and have managed to get along perfectly well in the intervening months.

Bruce scuffs his heels against the front door step like a child and actually stoops to _ringing the doorbell_ , that’s how off-balance he is.

It has absolutely nothing to do with Dick’s suggestion that this is a gesture of common politeness which his middle son and daughter would appreciate from him.

Tim flings the door open, astonishment written all over his features. They’ve filled out again, thankfully – no longer pale and drawn. Bruce only hopes that uptick to his mouth and the glint in his eyes are both permanent.

“You rang the doorbell.”

“I assume that is why you _have_ one,” says Bruce, refusing to feel panicked. Was Dick wrong? (Impossible.)

“I didn’t know you’d ever learnt what they were for,” says Tim.

Bruce smiles. “Alfred, uh, sent cookies.”

Tim’s face lights up. “First doorbells, now a package delivery service,” he says. “Amazing.”

They stand in the doorway and stare at each other.

“So –“

“Yes!” says Tim. “Come in. Um.”

They go inside. Bruce has an urge to wipe his shoes, but that passes pretty quickly when he sees the mess the place is in. Individually, Tim and Cass have always been fairly tidy, but together they’re falling behind: Cass’ sports bag is lying open in the hallway, the table in the dining room is piled high with books and coffee cups, a tangle of cords snakes across the living room floor that appears to belong to various video game controllers, and a pile of half-folded laundry has taken up residence on an armchair. In the kitchen, there’s a computer on the work surface and two empty pizza boxes by the trash.

Tim cracks open the box of cookies and immediately offers one to Bruce. Cass comes in just as he’s biting down and takes one herself, smiling.

“You came by!”

“Mission from Alfred,” says Bruce, gesturing with the cookie.

She watches him for a moment, nods.

He pauses there, finding himself _aware_ of the silence in the kitchen in a way he hasn’t been in a long while.

“How’s the ballet?”

Cass smiles. “Good! I love it.”

“I’m glad.”

They all go silent again.

“So, uh, did you want the tour?” Tim asks.

Bruce takes another cookie. “If you want to give it,” he says, feeling diffident and hesitant and out of place.

Feeling out of place is not a sensation Bruce Wayne – or Batman – usually bothers with. If it ever comes up, he tends to make a point of ensuring that everyone else around him is at least as wrongfooted as he is. But… what works on the JLA is at least a little inappropriate in his children’s house, he supposes.

He tries a smile. Dick would do that. It goes over spectacularly well: they both beam at him. Bruce feels downright proud of himself.

*********

They go out to dinner later on at some hole-in-the-wall Greek place that Cass suggests. Bruce doesn’t know how she found it, but he remembers that Steph likes Greek food. He drinks an excellent glass of red wine and talks to them about – he doesn’t know what he talks to them about. The company. The apartment. Hong Kong. Damian. Jason. Dick. Bruce’s relationship with Selina. At one point he and Tim get into an argument over whether or not Captain America really died: Bruce doesn’t believe it, because this is _Captain America_ they’re talking about, but Tim insists he owns the issue. Cass likes some comics, but she judges them solely on the merits of their art and says half the time they hurt her eyes because the people are all drawn wrong and women have spines too.

The last time Bruce had a conversation about comics it was with Tommy Eliot. They were both seven.

*********

No, that can’t be true. Dick used to read them, didn’t he?

*********

It’s past three when he gets back to the penthouse. Damian has fallen asleep on the couch, a textbook balanced on his chest, one arm outflung and hanging down to the floor. There’s a light on under Dick’s study door, the low murmur of his son’s voice; he’s probably on the phone.

Bruce leans down and carefully shakes out the throw rug to drape over Damian’s still form. The boy stirs sharply as his father comes closer, almost waking. Bruce decides not to touch the textbook, and simply tucks him in. Damian’s eyelashes flutter; he’s woken up, but is trying to hide it. Bruce’s hand hovers over his shoulder.

If it were Tim, Jason, Dick, he would touch them, stroke their hair back, rearrange that uncomfortably draped arm. If it were Cass, he would kiss her forehead as well.

He brushes his fingertips over the boy’s shoulder.

“Good night, Damian.”

He’s almost left the living room when the couch creaks a little with Damian’s movement; he’s put his book down.

“Good night, Father.”

*********

“He’s got some sort of moral objection to sleeping in his own bed,” says Dick the next day. “I think he thinks it shows dedication, falling asleep on his books.”

Bruce frowns. “That’s… not healthy.”

Dick cackles.

Bruce frowns harder.

Dick shakes his head at him and pours himself another bowl of cereal. “Let him sleep there if it makes him feel better.”

“But,” says Bruce.

“By the time he’s been at school for three weeks he’ll be locking himself in his bedroom the second he gets home,” says Dick.

“Yes,” says Bruce, “this school plan…”

Dick folds his arms over his chest. He doesn’t reply – he doesn’t even look angry – he is – he’s _waiting Bruce out_.

This is un-Dick-like behaviour. Bruce objects to it. Strenuously. Tim waits people out. Cass waits people out. Barbara waits people out. _Bruce himself_ waits people out, unless he already knows what they’re going to say, which he usually does. If there is one thing that Dick, Jason and Steph all have in common it is that they do not simply wait people out. None of them are wired that way.

(This is all becoming horribly reminiscent of the time Dick turned sixteen and shot up ten inches overnight and started doing things like looking at colleges and dating and making his own decisions about his life that set a knot of panic in Bruce’s chest because he’d been so determined he was no good for any kind of father figure, and yet there he was, playing a heavy-handed overprotective new parent, just as if Dick hadn’t been living in his house for eight years already, forced to confront the fact that teenagers _change_ because that’s what adolescence is _for_ , and between one day and the next Dick had become a completely different person: not yet, at the time, an adult, but very definitely Bruce’s son.

He didn’t like it then, and he doesn’t like it now.)

Bruce settles for a strategic neutral, “I’m worried for him.”

Dick’s face softens.

Score.

“I know,” he says. “I am too, a little. It won’t be easy on him. I’ve been in his shoes.” He smiles, remembering. “But he’s tough and he’s smart and he makes friends just fine, when he actually wants to.”

Yes, the Wilkes boy, and Lian Harper, and Wally has said that his twins find Damian endlessly entertaining, which is… come to think of it, it’s probably excellent practice for Gotham Academy.

“Yes,” says Bruce, unable to put his point into words, “but –“

“But he’s a half-Arab kid at a prestigious prep school where ninety percent of the other kids will be white?”

Bruce hadn’t thought of that at all.

He hopes it doesn’t show. (It probably does. Dick is sensitive to that sort of thing. Cass never has been, as far as Bruce can tell, but in a lot of ways Cass is… Cass doesn’t necessarily construct her identity the way other people do, or so Bruce suspects.)

“I don’t doubt his ability to do the work,” he tries.

Dick rolls his eyes. “We’re not talking about his ability to do the work,” he says patiently. “Dami’s extremely smart, and he knows it. He’ll never have your patience, but that doesn’t mean he can’t beat you at chess.”

Bruce permits himself a smile.

“And it’s not about his social skills, either – it’s not like you’re afraid he’s going to snap one day and stab someone in the cafeteria for looking at him wrong.”

“No,” says Bruce.

“You know what I think?”

Bruce sighs. “I don’t believe I’ve ever really known what you think, Dick,” he says ruefully.

“I think,” says Dick gently, “that you don’t want to give him up, because you’ve only just come home, and you were expecting everything to have stood still and waited for you to come back and pick up where you left off. Oh, not consciously. You knew we’ve all changed. But that’s what you thought, somewhere in there.”

Bruce leans back in his chair and props his head on his hand. “You really believe I’m that obtuse?”

“Yes.”

“Charming.”

“But it’s not about obtuse, you know. It’s just about… not having been here.”

“I’ve been here!”

“Three months out of twelve don’t count.”

He sighs, defeated but reluctant to admit it. The bad father accusation has been chasing him for years, and sometimes – often – he doesn’t know what to do to make it untrue again. Bruce is not, after all, infallible. Neither is Batman.

“Take him someplace,” says Dick.

“What?”

“You and Damian. Go do something together. Like you went for dinner with Tim and Cass. Go… I don’t know, go do something you’ll both enjoy.”

“A museum visit, a day at the zoo?” says Bruce, sarcastic.

“You’re the world’s greatest detective,” says Dick, grinning. “Work something out.”

*********

But Bruce knows he’s sunk to simply disgusting levels of parental incompetence when he manages, one day at breakfast, to weasel an opinion out of Damian on what he enjoys doing in his spare time and it turns out that he’s aficionado of art galleries and has a deep fondness for the big cat enclosures at the Gotham City Zoo.

Dick butters his toast with a supremely false look of innocence and has the common decency to refrain from comment. Bruce carefully avoids looking at him when he says, “You could take me sometime.”

Damian has just swung his jaw open to take a simply enormous bite of a buttered bacon sandwich. (It is, apparently, his traditional Sunday morning breakfast; he eats some variation of muesli most of the rest of the week.) He has the sandwich in both hands, and lowers it suspiciously to stare at his father. His mouth is still hanging open. Bruce has an urge to reach over the table and push his chin up, the sort of fond, familiar gesture he used to make with Dick twenty years ago.

He reaches over the table and nudges Damian’s chin up with a fingertip. Damian jerks as if he’s been burned. Bruce is careful to hide his wince.

“Why?” Damian says suspiciously.

It’s a trick question of some sort. Why does he think? Bruce is his _father_. He read almost all the books that Jason used to devour when he was a teenager, all but the most turgid and long-winded tomes about epic quests and elfmaidens, and he learned about kickflips and Tony Hawk when Tim started skateboarding, though he will admit that he lost track of the absolute myriad of Dick’s ‘favourite’ things when the boy was about thirteen. Dick has a habit of consuming everything he can find on a subject in a month at most and then moving on, like a human-shaped plague of locusts that feeds off new information; Bruce has always been mostly convinced that he flunked out of Hudson more because he got bored with the coursework than because he wanted to annoy Bruce, whatever the boy’s protests to the contrary.

So he eyes Damian up a little suspiciously, but he supposes it _is_ just possible that Talia has no idea that Damian’s favourite singer is Kurt Cobain.

“I’d like to know about the things you enjoy,” he says, and bites down a remark about kittens.

Damian turns to Dick. He still hasn’t put his sandwich down.

Dick says, “It’s not a trick, little D.”

“Hrrrunph,” says Damian. “Very well then.” He glowers at Bruce. “If you’re going to throw yourself into the cafeteria at the GMA for five hours while I sketch, tell me now.” It’s Dick’s turn to get a scowl.

“Five hours!” says Dick. “More like ten. The curator had to come throw you out personally. I could’ve read all of Proust in the time you were ‘sketching’.”

“The ignorance of the unartistic,” says Damian, unimpressed.

It’s on the tip of Bruce’s tongue to point out that unlike Jason and Tim, both Dick and Cass can actually draw passably well; in fact he’s sure that folder he kept of Dick’s drawings for school has survived _somewhere_ in the Manor. But, looking at Damian’s earnest, studiedly arrogant little face, Bruce decides that discretion is probably the better part of valour at this point, and turns his attention back to his scrambled eggs. 

*********

That’s four out of five – uh – _taken care of_ seems – an inaccurate expression. But. Preliminary groundwork established, at least.

The fifth…

(Of course you’re not afraid of Jason, says Diana. You’re afraid of trying to help him and to fix things with him because it might fail completely and then you’ll have lost him for good. If you don’t ever try in the first place, you can still hope.)

*********

Stalking Jason doesn’t take much effort. The boy’s either grown careless, which Bruce doubts, or he knows Bruce is there and isn’t interested in confronting him, which Bruce also doubts, so the likelihood is that there’s something going on and Jason doesn’t have time to confront him, in which case it is imperative that Batman monitor further proceedings. When Red Hood doesn’t have time for a confrontation with Batman it usually means he’s planning… something. 

People will probably die. Half the city will get blown up. There’ll be a gang war and a mass Arkham breakout. _All at once_.

The usual.

Six hours later it’s four in the morning: Jason has stopped two singularly incompetent seventeen-year-olds from committing a burglary, escorted a streetwalker to the free clinic and the pharmacist and apparently paid for whatever medication the boy needed, broken up a drunken brawl outside a club, apparently convinced the owner to give him a job, God knows why, Batman will have to get Oracle to look into the place, and met another streetwalker by the abandoned Park Lane subway station who directed him to an apartment a block over where a man named Golan was apparently beating his wife; judging by her distress the prostitute appears to consider the woman a friend, or possibly a relative.

Batman follows Jason across the block, expecting a public altercation to materialise in the street any minute, but instead Jason marches straight into the apartment block. Batman frowns. That’s not procedure. That’s breaking and entering; but then again, in comparison, a relatively paltry crime for the Red Hood…

He crosses to the roof of the building in question and settles in to wait. It doesn’t take long. Golan winds up cuffed to his fire escape in his underwear in the chilly spring morning, right hand and nose and left knee all broken, face caked with blood and streaked with tears, ugly purple bruises forming along his sides and across his chest, matching up no doubt with Jason’s boots.

Batman, exasperated with Jason’s crude theatrics, calls it in to GCPD and follows Jason and the family out of Crime Alley. But by the time he’s crouched on another fire escape watching his second son feeding Golan’s two small daughters and their battered mother English muffins and bacon in a diner across the street Batman is forced to concede that maybe Jason just genuinely doesn’t want to talk to him.

He’s irritated. That’s interesting. He pokes at the feeling a little, curious: irritated, annoyed, impatient for the woman Jason’s holding to finally stop crying and leave with her children so he can go over there and –

Bruce hauls his thoughts up short, appalled at himself. He balances on the fire escape in a state of something like shock for another few minutes. Then he forces himself up onto the roof and takes off in the direction of the East End.

He has a job to do, and no time to sit on fire escapes feeling irrationally angry about the crying habits of people who need help.

*********

People who need help _are_ his job.

*********

One vicious gang fight later Catwoman says, “All it means is that you want to talk to your son, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“I shouldn’t have been – it wasn’t right that – her whole face was bruised and she was crying and those children –“

“It’s always cute when you remember you’re human and get flustered over it instead of going into robot mode,” says Catwoman, propping her hands on her hips. The morning sunlight is flashing on her goggles. _Sunlight_. This is ridiculous. And dangerous. And… unnecessary. Batman should leave, leave right now. ”Will you put that grapple gun down and come over here, please?”

She isn’t asking.

After a moment, Batman puts the grapple gun down and goes over there.

*********

Two nights later Jason TP’s the car and leaves a Batman plushie hanging from the rearview mirror by its neck with a sign saying ‘stalker!’ pinned to its cape.

Well, it’s a step up from killing people, Bruce supposes.

*********

He keeps the plushie in the glove compartment. Dick’s probably noticed it, but Dick was brought up to be considerate and respectful and doesn’t ask him about it.

*********

It’s not that Bruce and Damian’s day at the GMA is a failure, but – but Bruce does wish the boy had more fondness for some harmless Impressionist or other – Monet or Matisse or someone – than Hieronymus Bosch.

He should’ve expected it, really.

Nevertheless, the operation went off objectively well: no argument occurred, Damian’s behaviour was unobtrusive and comparatively polite, and Bruce found himself quite fascinated and pleased with the chance to watch his son without the boy wearing a mask over his eyes. Damian has an equally regrettable fondness for chocolate milkshake – strawberry is clearly objectively superior – but this is one of the few things about him that seem to Bruce genuinely childlike.

Bruce would like to claim he has experience with black-haired, blue-eyed little boys too old for their age, and perhaps in the basics this is true, but all four of his sons are diametrically different from each other, even when they’re similar. He’s always known this.

(He hasn’t, perhaps, always acted accordingly. Remembering the glaring ways in which Jason and Dick are different, despite their fundamentally similar temperaments, sends a twisting shame through his chest that he hasn’t felt in a long time – too preoccupied with other guilt, Jason’s death, return, the warping of his mind. Bruce knew there was more to the boy’s anger and hurt than dead parents, malnutrition, and a habit of smoking when he was nervous or upset. He knew it, but he didn’t _want_ to know, to admit it and face it; too afraid of failure, of hurting Jay more. And so – because Bruce Wayne is still the Batman, despite everything he tells himself – he stopped it, that knowing; he turned it off, and went on his merry way, and put off for another few years the inescapable acknowledgement that his sons are not as much like him as people seem to think. One day perhaps he’ll find a way to make amends to Jason. One day perhaps Jason will let him.)

Diana and Clark disapprove of him thinking of people as puzzles, but in Damian’s case Bruce is resolved to it – just until he’s got the hang of how best to approach the boy. Once he understands him it’ll be easier.

And more fun, of course. He wonders if Damian’s ever been to a circus where half the inhabitants aren’t trying to kill him. If not, well, that’s clearly a significant gap in his education. Bruce will have to rectify it.

*********

Batman doesn’t really talk much; words are not his true area of expertise, though he can use them effectively when he needs to. Bruce… understands the mechanics of them, but has never grasped the importance people place on them. Words are nothing: air and sound. Words last less than seconds, intangible, leaving no trace of themselves behind; they have no _real_ power, no validity, no weight or heft. They cannot stand between a body and a bullet. Actions are the only currency that matter.

He used to think his daughter felt the same way. He’s fairly sure she still does, for the most part; he suspects it’s his own view that’s begun to change, his perspective skewed, tilted, _off_.  

Cass doesn’t talk about Hong Kong. Bruce doesn’t know when he first noticed that. Of course, Cass doesn’t talk about a lot of things, but…

Maybe it’s just Bruce’s imagination. It’s probably Bruce’s imagination. Or latent guilt. Why didn’t he say – why didn’t he explain?

He’s sure he had a good reason, not to explain.

He _always_ has good reasons.  

He goes over to the apartment; Tim waves him in absentmindedly, nose squashed against his tablet screen.

“Living room,” he says in answer to Bruce’s query. “Gotta sort this out. Tracking a thing for the Titans. Right with you.”

Bruce smiles. “That’s all right.” Tim’s too distracted to reply. Bruce thinks he should probably take him by the shoulders and steer him back to his computer chair before he trips on the mess he and Cass like to leave lying around and breaks a bone, but Tim manoeuvres his way down the hall with practiced skill, muttering at the tablet.

Cass is in the living room, cross-legged on the couch. She’s got a tablet of her own and a pile of notes, paper littered with half-sentences and sketches.

“Cobblepot again,” she says around the pen in the corner of her mouth. Bruce resists the temptation to reach over and tug it out. “ _Hate_ him.”

“I know,” says Bruce, sitting down on the other couch. She’s wearing leggings and a bright pink sweatshirt that hangs off her as if it were six sizes too big. Apparently that’s fashion.

Bruce says, “I wanted a quick word.”

Cass looks up. The pen dangles; she takes it out. “What about?”

“Hong Kong,” he says. She goes still, bites her lip thoughtfully. Careful, Bruce. Your daughter, this is.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

She blinks.

“For sending you there.”

“That’s…” Cass smiles. “Thank you. That’s all right.”

“It isn’t,” says Bruce quietly. “I had no right to ask that of you.”

Cass straightens up a little, dropping her hands into her lap. “It’s all right,” she repeats. Then, quietly, she adds, “It was for Steph.”

“It was, partly,” Bruce agrees. He owes it to Steph to do better, to make amends, just as he owes it to Jason, but he’s not sure if he has the right to try, not for Steph. He’s never been her father. “But you wanted to be – I meant for it to go to you, when you came back to Gotham. I thought you needed to learn to handle a city on your own, the way I did, the way Dick did. I thought you needed to see that in yourself, especially after – what happened. And I told Dick not to take it. He’s never wanted it, but you do; I meant for you to have it, in the end.” He pauses there, watching Cass’s surprise. “I should have found another way.”

Cass says, “Yes.” She looks away from him then, frowns at the floor. Bruce hasn’t the words to make this right. Perhaps he was wrong: he shouldn’t have brought it up at all. There’s a bottomless pit opening in his stomach.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats.

She looks up again, smiling. The change is minute, but it’s there. Bruce is relieved. “It’s all right,” she says. “It is. I couldn’t have handled Damian.” She grins. It _is_ all right. He doesn’t deserve for it to be, but it is.

“Unsubstantiated assumption,” says her father, smiling back.

*********

Perhaps inevitably, Dick’s guest bedroom begins to take on a frighteningly… home-y feel.

It hasn’t ever occurred to Bruce before to live anywhere but the Manor, so perhaps it’s not surprising that he never realised just how few of his possessions he really needs in his day-to-day life. The Manor is stuffed with things that are important to him, possessions he’s owned since he was eight, things his parents chose and bought, but the number of them that he actually _uses_ …

When Dick was very small he used to cram himself into corners with his duvet and his stuffed animals and sleep there, unsettled by the sheer size of the Manor, the high ceilings and empty rooms. As his grief passed his nerves began to settle; he managed one day to move his bed from the centre of the room to lie against one wall, but otherwise his discomfort with the open spaces in the house faded.

Bruce, standing now in a comparatively small guestroom littered with his books, his phone, his laptop, his clothes, begins to understand that discomfort for the first time he can remember. In the room next door Damian is playing rock music; there’s a smell of freshly-made toast and jam, and Cass is whistling in Dick’s study, curled in an armchair and working her way steadily through criminology textbooks. Dick’s step in the corridor, the sound of his laugh.

Far too home-y. He and Dick haven’t lived in the same house since Dick was eighteen. The crunch will come.            

*********

What if it doesn’t?

Bruce hadn’t thought that far. He, who thinks of everything, not considering that in ten years and more both he and his eldest have grown up enough that – what?

“There’s a line my Ma always used to read to me,” says Clark. “ _But one day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again_.”

“Sentimental nonsense,” Bruce mutters half-heartedly.

*********

Alfred helps him choose the kitten.

“You’ll regret it when he starts climbing all your expensive upholstery and scratching to get out of that stuffy penthouse,” says Selina, laughing.

“ _Dick’s_ expensive upholstery,” Bruce corrects her, touching his fingertips to the hollow of her throat, the line of her collarbone. She rolls closer to him, mouth soft with laughter.

*********

Bruce doesn’t consider it to have been a mistake, giving Tim the company. He’s capable. Bruce has never yet found a challenge Tim could not rise to. Dick would have handled it equally well, but Dick has other responsibilities: the Titans, the League, Barbara, Damian, himself. Bruce has asked enough of Dick, over the years. And in light of the knowledge that he countermanded Bruce’s direct orders and put the cowl on scarcely days after Bruce had, uh, _left_ , well, it was a good decision not to burden Dick with the company as well.

On the other hand, Tim wasn’t even eighteen.

(Bruce hadn’t really believed the emancipation would be needed when he made the provisions. Not _really_.)

So here he is, in the corridor outside Tim’s office, balancing lunch on one hand and watching his orderly, efficient, well-dressed son through the gap left by the half-open door, wondering where the scrawny boy in the Gotham Knights jerseys with the skateboard and the teased-up hair has gone.

He has a feeling Tim’s wondering too, because there’s a scattering of college brochures spread across the coffee table in the corner of his office.

“Princeton?” Bruce asks hopefully, and gives a brochure for Hudson U a baleful look.

“Oh!” says Tim. “I – uh – “ He drops his pen – expensive thing, very nicely made – and runs a hand through his hair. It’s a mess. That’s more like it.

Bruce comes over to his desk and hands him the plate of sandwiches. Tim takes it, smiling.

“Gotham U,” he admits.

“Staying home,” Bruce says. “Well.”

He can’t really object to that, can he?

Come to think of it, as long Tim actually manages to _finish_ his damn degree in whatever he chooses to study, Bruce will never, ever say another word about his children’s choice of college.

Ever.

Anyway, Damian might still go to Princeton.

“What are you going to study?” he asks.

“Haven’t decided yet,” Tim admits, tearing a sandwich apart and peering interestedly inside. “Hey, wow, ham cheese and pickle, my favourite!” He chows down happily.

Bruce doesn’t get a thank you, but that’s parenthood for you, he supposes.

*********

Black Bat and Robin are doing handstands on a ledge above Ninth in Midtown when Batman comes across them.

“Are you being timed?” he says sardonically. Black Bat waves a foot a little in what Batman supposes is a greeting.

“No, but excessively bored,” says Robin sourly. “Batman – not you – has been in there for about half an hour and I have no idea what he’s doing.”

“Reading files,” says Black Bat.

“Why can’t he just steal them?”

“I assume he’s enjoying the peace and quiet,” Batman mutters.

“He gets enough of that,” says Robin. “You’ve been so busy hanging off Drake’s apron-strings – “

“No real names in the field,” says his father sternly. Tim’s had a busy week; Bruce has indeed helped him with a thing or two, and their evenings ran late, and he hasn’t really seen Dick or Damian all week, has he? Hmm.

“Red Robin’s with the Titans this weekend,” says Black Bat. “Robin... says he’ll come over and help me paint my room.”

“I did not,” says Robin. “I said I would consider it.”

“Don’t quibble,” says his sister, falling gracefully backwards onto her feet and the roof. Robin follows, red-faced from balancing upside down.

“It doesn’t take any particular skill, painting a room.”

“Maybe I want a mural.”

“Of what?”

“Gargoyles,” says Black Bat promptly.

“Hideous,” says Robin. “Father! Tell her.”

“Perhaps something a little less…”

“They’re for protection!” says Black Bat. “Oracle told me.”

“You believe in evil spirits, do you?” says Robin, scornful.

“Your grandfather’s… at least a thousand years old,” she points out, grinning.

“Yes,” says Robin, “and he’s been senile for about seven hundred of them. What’s your point?”

And Bruce used to think that Dick and Barbara’s bickering was grating. Half an hour alone with stolen files in a deserted office is beginning to sound increasingly appealing. He’s tempted to beg another errand and leave them to it, but –

\- well.

*********

Batman – Dick – is amused to see him: they don’t get much chance to talk, though, as there’s half a skyscraper’s worth of hired goons behind him.

“I hope you’ve not been passing this knack for trouble on to anyone else,” says Bruce irritably and pointedly. (It’s probably a forlorn hope that Cass will have enough influence on her brothers that at least one of them will turn out sensible. He used to think that would end up being Tim, but, well, Tim. Reckless, brave, prone to self-sacrifice and convoluted schemes: none of these things go well with sensible, more’s the pity.)

“Nah,” says Batman, and Bruce will never, ever be used to seeing him grin while wearing the cowl. “Robin already got yours.”

*********

The penthouse is blessedly quiet on Saturday. Alfred left with Damian for Cassandra’s – not before making breakfast; Bruce is a little offended by the suspicious look he got – and the weather is dreadful. The rain’s coming down in sleets and the temperature dropped like a stone overnight.

Back at the Manor, when Dick was small, they’d spend days like this in the study before the fire, reading and toasting bread on forks and drinking tea. Well, the penthouse doesn’t have a fire, but Bruce puts the kettle on and borrows a book from Dick’s study, waiting for his son to get up. Damian’s cat is curled on an armchair, twitching in its sleep; it hasn’t yet graduated to shredding the upholstery, thank God. He was delighted with the scrawny thing – named it Alfred, in fact – and Bruce has been meaning to ask Dick about getting a dog. Boys, Bruce has always believed, should have dogs. They had to put Ace to sleep just a few months after Jason came to the Manor. At the time Bruce thought that Jay couldn’t care less about pets either way, and never bothered to get another dog. He suspects that was a mistake.

_Unconditional friendship, teach you responsibility. You’ll have to come and pick it out with me. Something that’ll take care of you…_

Thomas Wayne never had bought his son the talked-of puppy. Maybe Bruce should get one for Jason while he’s at it. Hmm.

Dick wanders in around eleven, barefoot and dressed in sweatpants and a long-sleeved shirt. “Filthy weather,” he says, pouring himself a cup of tea and climbing onto the couch. He wraps himself up in the throw rug with a shudder, bundled up like a child again. Bruce has an urge to take a photograph. “Thank God it’s Saturday.”

“Shame about the fireplace,” says Bruce. “What’s that you’re reading?”

“Bulgakov,” says Dick. “You know, I know less than nothing about Russian history?”

“I did not,” Bruce smiles.

“Totally ignorant,” says Dick. “I can give you chapter and verse on places like France but hell if I know when Ivan the Terrible even lived.” He shakes his head.

“New project, I take it.”

“What else am I gonna do on a day like today?” Dick asks cheerfully. “It’s this and then work. You going to Cass’s?”

Five years ago, the question would’ve had some inflection, some implication – _I hope you don’t, I wanna hang out with you_ , or the complete opposite, or something. Now it’s just a question.

“No,” says Bruce. “Everything seems to be covered.” He made sure it was covered: Barbara gave him a very amused look when he shuffled half Dick’s cases off onto her and Steph, but neither of them objected.

“At Cass’s?”

“Workwise,” says Bruce. “Drink your tea, it’s getting cold. Alfred left us breakfast.”

“That was generous of him,” says Dick, smiling.

“Hmm,” says Bruce.

“You just can’t say it, can you?” Dick’s still smiling, amused, indulgent. “ _Hey Dick, let’s spend time together_. No two ways about it, Damian’s definitely your son.”

“It’s a chore,” says Bruce, “shuffling round the five of you while you get on with your lives.”

Dick’s expression slides from amused into thoughtful. “Meaning?” he asks.

“Exactly what it sounds like.”

Dick’s turn to _hmm_.

Bruce puts a hand on his shoulder. “You wear it well,” he says. “You all do.”

“The cowl? Responsibility? Adulthood?”

“Take your pick,” says his father, standing up. “Breakfast, Robin, yes or no?”

“Yes,” Dick says promptly. “And chocolate syrup on my pancakes.”

“You’ll be lucky!”

“Well,” says Dick. “I generally am, aren’t I.”

“I suppose that makes two of us,” says Bruce.


End file.
